


like flour on a black t-shirt

by floraltohru



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2001), Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, I like to think so., Is it pining if you don't realize you're pining?, M/M, Pining, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27104560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floraltohru/pseuds/floraltohru
Summary: Sometimes Kyo's clothes go missing. You'll never guess the culprit.
Relationships: Sohma Kyou/Sohma Yuki
Comments: 8
Kudos: 152





	like flour on a black t-shirt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RiddleAfar (Snyuuk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snyuuk/gifts).



Trial and error. 

That’s how it starts. 

With two boys - and Shigure - living under one roof, their laundry is bound to get mixed up, especially at first. 

Tohru tries her best. That’s a given; Tohru tries her best in every single thing she attempts, ever. School. Work. Chores. 

It’s admirable, if sometimes worrisome. 

Yuki, at least, worries for Tohru and her fretful fevers, so he doesn’t say anything when Kyo’s clothes inevitably end up in his stack of laundry, even if something beneath his sternum twinges in a way he can’t quite put words to when it happens. 

To her credit, it’s not an issue too terribly often; Tohru is at least observant enough to determine a difference between their shirts and pants. Yuki doesn’t look right in the reds and oranges that Kyo favors, and Kyo wouldn’t be caught dead in -  _ god forbid -  _ pale blue. 

But the rest of their wardrobe is left up to Tohru’s best guess. 

He figures she’s probably just too shy to ask, too awkward to broach the subject, so Yuki resigns himself to pitching any errant socks or underwear over the threshold into Kyo’s room. Yuki really doesn’t worry about inconveniencing Tohru; for all his bravado, Kyo is more uptight than he appears, and he gets twitchy around  _ mess _ . He'll clean it up himself. 

So it’s satisfying to watch Kyo’s clothes scatter on the pristine floor of his bedroom when Yuki flings them inside. It’s even better when Kyo’s still sitting at his desk and Yuki catches half of a “seriously, you damn rat?” before slamming the door to his own room. 

More often than not, he’s up on the roof or out at the dojo, but Yuki is smug with the knowledge that he’ll swear under his breath, fold them all up again, and shove them back in a drawer when he returns. 

Kyo, probably for fear of fatal injury in the clutter and decay of Yuki’s bedroom, typically just leaves any errant clothes in a stack outside the door, still folded. 

Yuki shoves them into a drawer. Squashes down a creeping unpleasantness. Doesn’t bring it up when he watches Tohru sort their clothes, humming to herself as she does. 

She gets better, perhaps unconsciously, the more laundry she does and the longer she gets to know them. 

For a while it isn’t a problem, so there’s a brief moment of confusion when Yuki finds himself in possession of a plain black T-shirt that he’s certain isn’t his. He digs his hands into the fabric to ball it up, but he’s caught off guard by the fact that it’s softer than he expected it to be, light and downy under his fingertips. 

It makes sense, now that he thinks about it. Kyo might be rough and tumble on the outside, but he’s also a creature of comfort. Upon further reflection, he thinks about the way Kyo tugs at his neckline, refuses to button his shirts to the top or wear a tie, dons bulky jackets and wears them open even in the dead of winter. 

It dawns on Yuki, then: Kyo doesn’t like to be collared. 

The shirt is worn but not threadbare beneath his fingertips, softened in the wash and dried in the sun, and Yuki isn’t sure what keeps him holding on instead of crumpling it up and tossing it into the bedroom across the hall. Something melancholy makes him want to press it to his chest, to his cheek. It’s an impulse he doesn’t take the time to reckon with, cramming it into a corner of his dresser drawer before shoving the rest of his clothes in as an afterthought. 

He leaves it there and doesn’t think about it. 

He leaves it there and  _ tries _ not to think about it. 

For the most part, Yuki is successful. The shirt is in a drawer, but really it’s in a box, another box in a procession of boxes with lids shut tight and vacuum-sealed. 

He’s good at that. Boxes. Lids. 

Until he’s rummaging through his clothes in the early hours of the morning, cool blue dawn light pressing through the wisps of fog blanketing Shigure’s yard to leak through his window. He probably won’t be able to speak with any coherence for at least another forty minutes and a splash of brisk water on his face, and he suspects parts of his brain are still wandering along the thin boundary between  _ asleep _ and  _ awake. _

So, who could blame him for his poor decision-making?

It’s as soft as he remembers. Instinctively, Yuki’s hands clench around the dark cotton. The room is cold, he’s not cognizant, no one could blame him for a brief lapse in judgment. 

When he looks in the mirror, Yuki remembers why he doesn’t make a habit of wearing black. It washes him out, blanches his already pale skin, makes him look like one of those specters Haru used to claim haunted the halls of the Sohma estate when they were kids. 

Besides, it’s a little too big for him. 

But he pulls on his uniform shirt over it and knots his tie - as well as he can - and he’s fairly confident no one can tell. 

It feels a certain kind of way to have a secret. 

Yuki tells himself it’s a little act of rebellion, a silent, covert  _ fuck you _ to his rival. He justifies it with a degree of smugness, a haughtiness; he doesn’t stop to think about the way he likes the feeling of Kyo’s shirt against his skin or the fact that Kyo has felt the soft press of the same fabric falling gentle against his shoulders. 

Those thoughts are kept in a box crammed so far back in his mental closet that he’s not even aware it’s there. 

The day passes as it normally does, but the hidden knowledge electrifies him when he remembers it, creeping up on him in intervals: at lunch, during his trigonometry quiz, on the walk home from school, eyes pinned to Kyo's backpack. 

When Yuki changes his clothes before setting off to manage his garden, he almost tosses the shirt into his laundry pile. He hesitates, cramming it under his pillow instead before he has time to process what he's doing. 

After he's said goodnight to Tohru, Yuki takes off his own pajama shirt and slips the black T-shirt on over his head. 

_ It's soft _ , he thinks.  _ Comfortable _ . That's all. 

When he wakes, he forgets his dreams. He shoves the now-crumpled shirt back into the corner of his drawer.

* * *

It's only after years of shouting matches and intense sparring and terse confrontations and anxious, deadly quiet confessions that it actually comes up in conversation. Kyo sits next to Yuki against the headboard with his left knee knocking against Yuki's right, bathed in the soft glow of the lamp on the bedside table. 

"Is that my shirt?" he asks. 

Yuki turns, momentarily caught off guard, lavender eyes blinking behind his reading glasses. "Hm?" 

Kyo pinches his sleeve. "Isn't this mine?" 

Yuki furrows his brow. "Maybe?" 

"Hm." Kyo grunts. It's not like he  _ really _ gives a fuck. When it comes to pajamas, Yuki is always stealing his shit. It's easy to forget what belongs to whom and difficult to care too much about proper garment attribution. 

Yuki turns back to the book in his hand, no doubt something pretentious and verbose. "Would it bother you if it was?" 

"I didn't say that." 

"Well I should hope not. I've been stealing your clothes since I was sixteen." He flicks to the next page absentmindedly, but Kyo stiffens. 

"Say that again." 

"I said I've been stealing your clothes for a while now?" He looks back at Kyo, a slight wrinkle to his nose betraying his mild annoyance. 

"No, that's not what you said." Kyo plucks the book from his hand, placing it facedown on the bed and leaning in closer. "You said you've been stealing my clothes since you were sixteen."

Yuki stutters slightly as a scarlet flush creeps up from beneath the neck of his -  _ Kyo's  _ \- T-shirt. "I didn't mean-" 

"Asshole!" Kyo cries, and his prowess as a martial artist makes it easy for him to pin Yuki beneath him before Yuki has time to process what's happening. "No wonder I moved out with four T-shirts to my name."

"Well what did you think was happening to them?" Yuki rolls his eyes, fidgeting under Kyo's weight. "Get off me."

"No." Kyo tightens his grip on Yuki's wrists. "What did you take?" 

"It's all in the past." Yuki gives him a look of faux-serenity, and Kyo would find his smirk infuriating if he wasn't a little bit infatuated.

"Son of a bitch. Did you take the black one?" 

Yuki tries his best to shrug, still pinned in place. 

"That was my favorite shirt, you bastard!" 

"Oh, are you angry?" Yuki teases. 

"Yeah I'm - I mean,  _ kind of _ ." Kyo tries to frown like he's actually pissed, but his heart isn't in it. 

"I guess I'll just have to make it up to you."

"Yeah," Kyo breathes, leaning down to nip at Yuki's neck just above the neckline of his shirt. "I guess you will."

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY rat queen mister grass!! pls enjoy this fic, and my undying adoration. 
> 
> Loosely inspired by this tweet by @lil_beehive on twitter (though I have tinkered with the timeline to suit my own dark purposes): https://twitter.com/lil_beehive/status/1315383512187494402?s=20
> 
> Title from "messy" by Emily & Cami Proctor
> 
> i'm floraltohru across the board. hang out w/ me on twitter or tumblr. if u dare.


End file.
